Monday, November 7, 2011

OH GOD WHY?! Nintendo 64-palooza

Another week, another crappy game. Such is the life of Christopher Linendoll.

After awaking the mighty beast that is OH GOD WHY?! from its’ slumber last week, I was incredibly excited to lose a good portion of my weekend free time to another horrible shit train. I decided to focus on the Nintendo 64 this week, as I have yet to properly rip that system a new asshole. To be honest, I have a bit of a soft spot for the N64. It wasn’t my first system, nor was it the one I amassed the largest collection of games for. It was, however, the system I spent the most amount of time with. My family moved to a bumfuck backwoods redneck town in the fall of 1998, and the N64 was the only thing that kept me company for those first few months. As if that wasn’t sad enough, the game I lost hours to was WCW/ nWo Revenge. A wrestling game. Yeah. That’s what my problem is.

The Nintendo 64 was the last Nintendo system to play carts, and the controller was an ungodly trident designed by Poseidon on a meth bender. The analog stick was revolutionary though, so I guess it wasn’t all bad. While the N64 may not have had the huge library that the Playstation did, I managed to amass a respectable cache of AAA titles. GoldenEye, Revenge, MK Trilogy, Wave Race, Rogue Squadron, the list goes on. People like to give N64 a lot of shit, but truthfully, this was the last time any 3rd party developers even tried to make decent games for Nintendo.

But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for the bottom of the barrel. I didn’t know what game to pick for this week’s article, so I went with an old standby: licensed games. The intent was to pick one game, and do a normal OH GOD WHY?!, but that didn't work out. I honestly couldn’t play the first couple of games I chose for more than a couple of minutes each. And I’m sure as hell not going to just accept that fact that I’m 6 hours closer to my death with nothing to show for it. So we’re doing a grab-bag this week, and you’ll get my stream of conscious thoughts as I tried to play these for you.

Game #1: South Park Rally

Holy fuck, the N64 has three different South Park games. I know the first two (South Park, a Turok-2 powered FPS and Chef’s Luv Shack, a trivia game) are beyond terrible. But this is a kart racer, and kart racers are usually inoffensive at worst. Oh hey, you can play as Jesus, that’s kinda funny. Ok, Cop Cartman here we go: oh boy this looks bad. This music is going to make me kill a small animal. What the fuck? The track is a figure 8? There’s no signs pointing the way? I think this is the right way...nope. This way? Nope. Fuck. Oh goddamn it, Starvin’ Marvin just ran me off the road. Alright here we go.Why is everyone coming at me head-on? Now I’m going backward apparently. Fuck this.

Game #2: Cyber Tiger

Tiger Woods! Here we go! Some easy jokes here. What is this? Like arcade golf, ok. Kinda neat. Quick play. I think I’m on the moon. There’s a skunk walking directly in front of me. Why the fuck is there a skunk on the moon? Wonder if I can hit him? Nope. Pull back on the stick, and forward to hit, that’s kinda nice. Sand bunker. Alright I got this, wait for the meter to fill to 100% and the head of the club gets big. Water. Here we go, putting. This is easy. 5 feet. Another putt, 5 feet. Goddamnit, golf sucks. Hey remember that time Tiger Wood’s wife left him, cuz he banged all those waitresses? Yeah...me too...

Game #3: Razor FreeStyle Scooter

They made a game about Razor Scooters? This has got to be terrible. Oh great, I get to play as a 10 year old white kid in a backwards baseball cap. Title screen says my friends have been kidnapped by a robot? Okay...Yup, this is Tony Hawk. Oh no, it’s worse than Tony Hawk. This is Matt Hoffman’s Pro BMX. At least it's funny to watch the kid fall.

Game #4: Rugrats Treasure Hunt

The opening cinematic looks like Satan’s interpretation of Rugrats. It’s always creepy when 2D cartoons are made into 3D. Alright, the voices are okay, this might not be bad. Oh hey, it’s Grandpa, with the original voice actor, cool. Ok, here we go. OH WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! This is a board game?! I guess I’ll do the Reptar game. Ok, the kids are all mini-Reptars, that’s kinda funny. Yeah, not sure what the point is.

Spin. Move ahead 1 space.

Hmmm. Ok. Now I gotta sit and watch the other 4 kids move.

Spin. Move ahead 1 space.

Watch the other kids. Guess I gotta collect candy bars?

Spin. Move ahead 1 space.

Fuck this. Done.

Christopher Linendoll is fueled by rage. He can be reached via Twitter, or found in the hummus section of your local grocery store.